New president could act alone to aid farm labor needs, advocates say

WASHINGTON, Sept. 14, 2016 - Prospects
for comprehensive immigration reform on Capitol Hill appear as elusive as ever,
no matter the outcome of this fall’s presidential and congressional elections. That means that the administrative decisions
that the new president will make in enforcing immigration law will be that much
more important.

The new administration, for one, will
set enforcement priorities. President Obama, importantly, has refocused enforcement
priorities toward the border and away from employers. Donald Trump’s remarks on
immigration in August indicate that he may generally follow that policy, by
beefing up border security and focusing deportations on illegal immigrants with
criminal records. And Hillary Clinton
has repeatedly said that she won’t deport anyone unless they are criminals or
terrorist threats.

But none of that addresses what
farmers say is their growing need for a flow of legal workers. Agriculture
leaders would love to see Congress expand or replace the existing H-2A
visa program for seasonal farmworkers, something
congressional Democrats won’t allow to happen outside of comprehensive
immigration reform.

But there are
steps, which don’t need congressional approval, which a new administration
could take to make the H-2A program easier for farmers to use. There’s also
precedent for doing so. After an immigration reform bill failed in 2007, the
George W. Bush administration implemented changes in Labor Department
regulations to accelerate the H-2A application process.

A rule that took effect three days
before Obama took office eased a requirement that federal and state officials
inspect a farm’s actions and documentation to certify its compliance with the
program’s requirements before an H-2A application could go forward. The Bush rule allowed farms to attest, under
threat of penalties, that they met the program requirements.

The only problem: The incoming Obama
administration said that easing the certification requirements failed to
protect either U.S. or foreign workers adequately. The White House acted
immediately to kill the rule and reinstate the previous certification process.

One obvious step
a new president could do to please farm groups is to reinstate the Bush rule. “The program is so complex now that every little step (in
the application process) can hold you up,” said Frank Gasperini, executive vice
president of the National Council of Agricultural Employers.

Gasperini believes the Obama
administration “encourages either directly or tacitly the idea that it should
be difficult for growers” to use the H-2A program.

But reinstating the Bush rule would do
nothing to change the basic requirements of the program on issues such as wages
and housing, and it would still be limited to seasonal workers, not the
year-round employees that dairy producers and others say they need.

There
are a number of additional steps that agriculture groups believe an administration could take on its own to ease restrictions.
One would be to limit the minimum wage requirements to bring them “more in line
with the real world,” said Craig Regelbrugge,
former co-chairman of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform.

Regelbrugge,
senior vice president at AmericanHort,
the horticulture industry’s trade group, also believes the statistical programs
used to set the wages should be revised so they more accurately reflect the job
and area where the worker would be employed. The minimum wage is set to prevent
H-2A workers from having an “adverse effect” on domestic employees in similar
jobs.

Regelbrugge also said the new administration should
consider changing the definition of “temporary or seasonal” workers so dairy
producers could use the program. Regelbrugge
said the idea could be tried on a pilot basis.

Also
on a pilot basis, the government could allow farms to provide a “housing
allowance” in lieu of housing to farmworkers, he said. The H-2A housing
requirement “is a major impediment to many producers having access to the
program,” he said.

“The agencies involved have all the
room they need to work to streamline processing functions, and could embrace
many other reforms that would improve access to the program, or make program
use smoother for current users,” said Regelbrugge.

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Ken Dallmier, President and COO of Clarkson Grain Company. While the global grain business is dominated by supply, demand and now trade wars, this Illinois-based company functions under a customer-focused mindset. Dallmier says this generation of consumer demand is dominated by a different set of social values leading to questions over the way food is produced and the prices they’re willing to pay. Sustainability, organic and non-GMO are providing farmers an income stream isolated from traditional market forces.

Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Environmental Protection Agency Acting Administrator of the Andrew Wheeler recently announced their intent to reassess and correct the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards.

The world of agriculture extends beyond what’s growing in your field or living in your barn, and here at Agri-Pulse, we understand that. We make it our duty to inform you of the most up-to-date agricultural and rural policy decisions being made in Washington D.C. and examine how they will affect you – the farmer, the lobbyist, the government employee, the educator, the consultant and the concerned citizen.